


Worst Day

by satan_copilots_my_tardis



Series: Signal Flares [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Brief description of violence, Gen, M/M, Mabel helps her brother with emotions, Older!Dipper, Older!Mabel, badass!Dipper, badass!Mabel, demonic affection, original form Bill, the kids live long enough to grow up and be awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3587832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satan_copilots_my_tardis/pseuds/satan_copilots_my_tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This may be the worse day of his life.<br/>Dipper and Mabel are chased through the woods by a monster and it all might have been set up by his demonic boyfriend. Mabel offers her services as a relationship counselor</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worst Day

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of what might develop into a series. Can totally be read as a stand-alone. Dipper is paranoid, Bill is sneaky and has no boundaries, and Mabel is a fantastic relationship counselor. SOME EDITS HAVE BEEN MADE SO THIS FITS IN WITH THE REST OF THE SERIES there's not like a whole lot that's been changed, but just thought it was important to alert you.

This might be the worst day of his life, Dipper Pines decides as he sprints through the forest. Branches scrape against his skin and he feels the hot sticky trickles of blood they leave behind. His heart pounds in his chest as he clutches Mable’s hand. He doesn’t stop to look at her or at the creature chasing them. He’s been doing this long enough to know when taking a glance back to reassure himself of her safety or to gauge how close the monster is wouldn’t be a problem, but times like this he knows a backward glance could cost them their lives.

“Dipper!” Mable shouts and tugs him to the left, he immediately follows her change of direction, letting her take lead. He sees the cave just as she dives to the ground, skidding against the dirt like a baseball player rushing for home plate before dropping off the small ledge and down into the abyss. He doesn’t hesitate to follow her, and lands with a thud a moment later, his rear and side aching from his harsh landing. They lean against the wall of the cave, the darkness wrapped around them as they try to smother their panting as they listen to the creature roar past their hiding spot. The twins sit in silence for a few moments to make sure the creature is gone before they look at each other. Mable is covered in dirt and scrapes, small branches and leaves sticking out of her hair and tears in her sweater. There’s sweat on her skin and for a moment she looks terrified before her face splits into a grin. It’s like the sun is shining.

“You okay?” He asks as they both take a moment to catalog their injuries.

“Yeah Bro Bro, but will you come check my wrist, I landed on it funny.” He scoots over to her in the dark, pulling out the small lantern from his backpack and setting it on the cool ground beside them. She lets him poke and prod at her for a moment, both experienced in identifying breaks and determining how quickly they might need to get medical attention. She hardly makes a sound even as he notes that the limb has swollen to almost twice its normal size. A fine lattice work of broken capillaries gives the forming bruise a dark purple color, the edges an angry red.

“Not broken, just sprained. I’ve got the first aid kit, let me wrap it.”

“Kay.” Dipper digs through the pack again.

“Where are we, anyway?” He asks.

“A little cave off of the Multibear’s home, when we got back a few weeks ago and he said if we run into anything we can’t handle it would be okay for us to hide around here.” Dipper smiles slightly, of all the creatures that they’ve made enemies of and of all the creatures that seemed indifferent to human life, there were always a few who were more than willing to take up a friendship with the resident mystery twins.

“Do we still have painkillers?” Mable asks, her voice starting to thin as the adrenaline wears off and the pain of her injury settles into her bones. Her brother hands her a small bottle of water and two pills which she swallows greatfully. They’ve learned to be prepared after their first summer in Gravity Falls six years ago, that wonderful, terrifying, life-changing, chalked- full-of-near-death-experiences summer.

At eighteen both twins have grown, their choices at home reflecting their experiences in the small town. When she was seventeen Mable had needed to fight her way through the Gnomes again to save Dipper, as they knew kidnapping him would bring their ‘future queen’ straight to them. They’d held her down by her hair and made her watch as they drove stake after stake into Dippers arms and legs, to convince her to consent to the marriage. Although the sharpen sticks were Gnome sized, they had caused serious damage, and after they’d been rescued Mabel took the scissors from her sewing kit and hacked off all of her long hair while Dipper had been recovering in the hospital. He remembers her coming to his room in the middle of the night, hair frayed and sitting at her chin, with blood crusted under her fingernails. She never told him how it got there but a few weeks later he’d found Jeff’s body nailed to a tree just outside the Gnome territory, head lying near the roots, with a message carved into the tree stating ‘Never Again’. He never asked Mabel about it, and she hasn’t grown her hair out since. Even now it is cut into a stylish bob, a headband holding her bangs out of her face while they adventure.

Dipper has grown too, after being injured one too many times while out on his own he made a point of having someone with him when he went out questing. He makes sure that he has a blessed knife and a bottle of anointed water with him at all times. He keeps basic medical supplies, some food and water, as well as several signal flares on his person. The signal flares weren’t his idea, but after the events of last summer he knows carrying them is necessary.

“I think its gone, you ready?” Mabel inquires as she pushes herself to her feet. She’d grown into herself when she was fourteen, body taking on feminine curves which balanced the toned muscles that came from years of running from the supernatural. They both now run for the track and cross-country teams at school in order to keep in shape during their time away from Gravity Falls. Some things don’t change though as she still wears homemade sweaters though she swapped out the skirts of her childhood for more functional shorts.

“Yeah, we should go through the cave though, just to be safe. Did the Multibear show you how to get out of here?” He stands and hefts the pack over his shoulders, securing it with a click of the buckle across his chest.

“Yeah, but I don’t know where we came in at.” He opens his mouth but his sister just holds up her hand. “Don’t worry I’ll just use that locator spell that we learned.” Dipper’s mouth settles into an unhappy line, but he doesn’t protest as his sister begins to chant softly. Her eyes open and begin to glow gold as her voice rises and falls without her awareness. He knows magic, he’s used it a few times himself, but they try not to. Using a spell calls on powers from places that can’t be described, places like the Mindscape, it fills the body and forces itself through the caster and into this world, taking control for a brief moment and leaving the caster vulnerable. Magic is usually too dangerous for humans to use, which is why amulets like the one that Gideon had back that first summer are so highly coveted, as they channel the spell directly instead of using the caster’s body.

He watches the darkness, hand resting on the holster strapped to his thigh. The hilt of the knife grows warm under his palm in the time it takes for Mabel to complete the spell. Her eyes flare brightly one final time before they are left in darkness again as she sags forward, taking a gasping breath. Dipper lets her regain her breath and balance for a moment, reaching into the side pocket of his bag and pulling out a small bar of chocolate. J. K. Rowling got something right there at least, using magic always takes a lot out of the caster who doesn't use an amulet as a conduit, and a quick sugar boost helps them to regain their equilibrium.

His finger brush against a flare that is sitting in the pocket as well and he stills. Heat flares across his neck and down his back. Oh right, he’s having the worst day of his life. Dipper hands the chocolate to Mabel who immediately senses his change in mood. She doesn’t say anything as she watches her brother take out the flare, a quarter sized amber disk with an engraving on the front, and fiddle with it. For a minute it looks like he’s going to break it in half, sending out the distress signal, but he just makes a frustrated noise and shoves it into his pocket.

“Which way?” He asks in clipped syllables.

“Two and a half miles north, we’ll come out at the edge of the forest near the Shack.” She answers neutrally. Dipper’s been in a mood all day, but she doesn’t pester him about it like she would have when they were younger, which he’s grateful for, as she instead waits for him to be ready to tell her what’s wrong.

“Lead the way.” They take off into the caves at a brisk pace on the off chance that the creature is able to figure out where they went and tries to follow them. The siblings walk in silence for about ten minutes before Dipper finally breaks it.

“Bill’s up to something.” He’s never been subtle so Mabel takes the sudden introduction to his thoughts with a grain of salt.

“Bill’s always up to something, Dipper.” She says while putting her arm around his shoulders, still an inch taller than him. “But I don’t think that we have anything to worry about.”

“I do.” There’s something tremulous in his voice. It’s hard and angry and it makes the damp cave feel colder.

“What happened?” His sister asks, now alerted to the severity of the situation.

“He told me that we shouldn’t go into the forest today.”

“Well he was kinda right, Bro Bro.”

“That’s not it,” Dipper shrugs out from her embrace. “He’s always saying vague stuff like that. ‘Oh kid, I wouldn’t eat the tuna if I were you.’, ‘Pine Tree, sitting on the roof is dangerous, you just might fall one of these days’, you know, just little things. Usually he’s right, but it’s always because _he_ makes the problems happen. He left the tuna out the night before so I would get sick, he loosened the shingles so that I fell last June. _He_ does those things.” His voice lowers and Mabel doesn’t make a move to comfort him again, sensing it would be unwanted. “He told me not to go into the forest today because it was dangerous. He told me that.”

“He didn’t set us up Dipper.” She keeps looking forward as they walk, hoping that it’s too dark for him to see her expression. “He likes us too much to get us killed.” Dipper scoffs.

“He’s a demon Mabel, he likes to pull teeth out of deer and make flower crowns with intestines.” He’s not wrong and they both shudder at the memory of when Bill had given them such gifts for the summer solstice three years ago. “Him liking us doesn’t mean much.” There’s an underlying moroseness in his tone that makes her heart squeeze. She knows exactly where this doubt is stemming from.

“Hey bro, even if he doesn’t feel like people do, he cares about what happens to us. I mean he’s saved our bacon more times than he’s tried to kill us, and he’s even been helping us get prepared for all the weirdness that comes from being here.” It’s true, of course, Bill’s the one who taught them magic, he’s the one who rescued them from the Gnomes, he’s the one who gave Mabel the strength to behead Jeff, not that Dipper knows it. He’s helped them fill two journals of their own in the time that they’ve been here. He’s even encouraged them to learn how to fight demons on their own if he’s not around to help or, and the implication hung heavy in the air, to fend Bill himself off if he attacks them.

“Maybe. I just can’t get over the fact that he knew what was out here today, he knew Mabel. But he didn’t stop me, he knew that you could have gotten killed and he didn’t care enough to really stop me from going. He just gave me a passing warning that the forest was dangerous today! The forest is dangerous everyday! How was I supposed to know that we couldn’t handle it?” His voice is shaking and he’s not sure if he wants to stab the demon or burst into tears. Mabel reaches over and takes his hand off the hilt of the dagger, squeezing it gently, and continues walking.

“I know you hate to hear it, Dip, but maybe you should talk to him when we get back.” Dipper scowls into the darkness. “He’s probably not gonna give you a straight answer, but at least he’ll tell you you’re being dumb for me.” Dipper’s head whips around to look at her. “Well you are. Let me tell you something as the supreme matchmaker that I am, and before you go denying it, yes I totally know that this is all stemming from romantic problems.” He thinks his jaw has come unhinged as a blush flares across his cheeks and denials perish on his tongue at her sure tone. “Bill knows how important this mystery stuff is to you, and that there is no way he can stop you from going and poking something that’s probably too dangerous for you to handle. Like if he had told you, seriously, that that thing was way too dangerous for you to handle and you should definitely not go poking at it with a stick because it could kill you, you know what you would have done?” His scowl gives her his answer. “You would have gotten all pissy and gone and poked it with a stick, probably alone, just to prove him wrong. And you know what would have happened then?”

“Mabel--”

“You would have died, Dipper.” She squeezes his hand a little tighter at the thought. “And Bill probably knew that. So he let you go, he made sure you took me, so that we could have each other’s backs. He taught us how to defend ourselves and he made sure that we had a hotline to him in case things got too hairy.” There’s a pause as Mabel leads her brother down a different tunnel. “He cares, Dipper, even if he’s not great at doing it the human way.” Some of the unease slips away at the sureness of her tone and he gives her hand a light squeeze in thanks. “Talk to him when we get back.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Also you can have first shower, I’m gonna get Stan to properly splint and ice my wrist.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

They walk for about half an hour before they’re clearing the treeline to the Shack. Soos is out front with Grunkle Stan both immediately standing when they see them. Their Grunkle takes Mabel inside to treat her wrist and Dipper heads upstairs to shower and change. He moves slowly as he strips off his clothing and steps under the warm spray of water. His muscles ache but he relishes in the feeling of the dirt and blood being washed from his body. Dipper doesn’t stay in the shower for very long, wanting to make sure that there’s enough hot water for Mabel when she decides to shower later. He spends a fair amount of time cleaning up his cuts, putting antiseptic on the particularly deep ones and bandaging them. He’s halfway done when Bill appears behind him.

The demon never understood why appearing in the bathroom was off putting so somehow it became an almost normal occurrence. Not to say he doesn’t still get yelled at, bottles thrown at him, or outright thrown from the room when he bursts in, it’s just that it doesn’t startle any of the Pines anymore. Dipper especially doesn’t startle, just wraps his towel more securely around his waist. Bill floats closer, watching as Dipper treats his wounds, but for once the chatty demon is quiet.

“Mabel says I would have died if I had gone alone.” The question is implied and a small hand brushes over his shoulder.

“Yes.”

“You knew.”

“I always know, Dipping Dot.”

“Do you know what we were talking about on our way back?” He puts a final bandage on his arm before turning to face the floating demon.

“Yup.” There’s a pause. “She’s right you know, I never put this much effort into making a toy I’m just going to break, Pine Tree.” It’s not entirely comforting but Dipper understands the sentiment behind the statement and with a deep sigh reaches out and grabs the demon. He crowds Bill against his chest and hugs him tightly even though touching the demon’s body makes his skin feel like someone’s jabbing sewing needles into him. If Bill’s surprised at the sudden affection he makes no indication and just lets the human hang onto him. Maybe it’s not the worst day of his life after all.

Not long later Dipper is upstairs flipping through the journals as he searches for what creature had been chasing him. Bill could have easily told him, but the demon likes the way Pine Tree’s eyes light up whenever he’s found an answer so he leaves the human to it. Mabel is lounging in the tub when he appears in the bathroom and she can’t even make the cursory effort to act surprised or indignant. The thick foam of her bubble bath obscures her body and her bandaged wrist is wrapped in a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet as she soaks.

“Bathroom, Bill.” She mutters as he floats over to her. “What’s up?”

“Just checking on you.”

“I’m okay.” Silence stretches out between them. “Are you going to hurt my brother, Bill?” The demon regards her for a moment.

“I won’t as long as you don’t, Shooting Star.” Mabel smiles up at him and she thinks that he might be smiling back. There’s a definite warmth in his presence. The demon hovers closer to her for a moment, reaching out to touch her injured wrist. She hisses at first before a soothing cool radiates through the tender flesh. “Rest up, you never know when your insane brother is going to drag you out again.” He moves to leave and Mabel smiles again.

“Thanks, Bill.”

“No problem, Shooting Star.” The girl happily sinks deeper into her bath and hums quietly to herself. Maybe she should add relationship counselor to her résumé along with matchmaker, DJ, glitter enthusiast, and sweater maker.


End file.
